The City of Broken Chains
by Shinkansen
Summary: -Ten years ago, the city of Kirkwall fell, abandoned by its Champion and ravaged by the Exalted March. Now a broken husk of a man, the former Champion stalks the lands of Thedas, sowing only sorrow and death. In Rivain, he came for his end. Unfortunately for Matrim Hawke, the Wyrd Waters obey no mortal man. The least of all, the Fallen Champion of Kirkwall. Timetravel.


**Chapter 1: The Hunter or the Hunted**

The City of Broken Chains

_-Full spoiler: Betrayer. Destroyer. That is what they called him now. Everything he ever touched, turned to ash. Every companion, slain. A broken husk of a man, with more than a decade's worth of death and ruin in his wake. Ten years ago, Kirkwall fell, abandoned by its Champion and ravaged by an Exalted March. In Rivain, he came for his death. Unfortunately for Matrim Hawke the Wyrd Waters obey no mortal man. The least of all, the Fallen Champion of Kirkwall. AU._

A/N: A plot bunny bit me, and wouldn't let go.

All constructive criticism is more than welcome, as are any thoughts (positive or not) on the story. If you think I am doing something wrong, don't hesitate to tell me. I promise in advance that I won't bash any of the characters. I very much like the vast majority of them and I wouldn't disrespect them so.

WARNINGS: AU, time travel.

-Disclaimer: _In no way or form do I own the Dragon Age franchise. It belongs to Bioware. No profit is being made by this story._

Chapter 1: The Hunter or the Hunted

He knew he would be caught, sooner or later. After the first few years, his hiding was more of a half-hearted pretense. It was inevitable that they would eventually find him. The Templars or the Seekers, the Mages or the Wardens. The Qunari or the Tevinters. It didn't really matter which. After almost ten years of war, he only saw the world in a never-ending haze of various hues of red; a result of too much blood magic mixed with too much alcohol, for an entirely too long time. What difference there was between a raging bull-man and a fanatical human? They looked all the same to him. Only nuances of red.

From time to time, it would occur to him to let his head be claimed by an assassin, mostly when he was far away from the pleasures of a decadent civilization, where no willing woman was near and no drink was close. If it was one of the Kirkwall Mourners or perhaps a fellow Ferelden headhunter that stumbled upon him, he probably would have. Matrim liked to think that he still possessed a single bone of patriotic pride... and just maybe a single whisper of remorse. But unfortunately, the only assassins to even come near him were the Crows. And Hawke still rather despised the Crows, even after all these years.

Once upon a time, this quite unsightly popularity with Thedas' most secret and dangerous orders would had him harping and cackling with unrestrained (and a maybe just the tiniest bit insane) laughter for weeks, when not bestowing gleeful and wildly inappropriate jokes on the unlucky passersby.

Once upon a time, a decade or two ago. He had been a rather talkative fellow then. Now, he only opened his mouth for brandy to drink. And grunt when satisfying his lust. Matrim considered it a good week when he spoke over ten words. He doubted that his dearest friends or closest lovers would recognize him if they saw him. That is, if they weren't lost. All lost.

Hawke had expected certain things to happen, when he consciously chose Rivain for his last destination, letting himself be convinced far easier than he should by the musty and questionable scrolls he had gathered and studied, searching for the faintest of whispers about a rumour of a legend, of an enigma hidden in a forgotten corner of the world. He had also reasonably expected and planned for some things to happen when he had _finally_ arrived in the city of Dairsmuid and had, _let's say regrettably_, killed the local Templar garrison, or at least the relatively few members of the Templar Order that were situated in one of the only two remaining non-Andrastian _human_ countries. _Perhaps_ his slaughter of the Templars was a little bit overdone, now that he reflected on it. It crossed his mind that perchance a bystander or two, or a hundred or two, had been_accidently_ killed by his magic as well.

An honest mistake, truly.

_And maybe_ he should have used something other than blood magic for the deed. It wouldn't really surprise him if a demon or two broke the newly frayed veil there. It _had_ happened before. Besides, Rivain had suffered surprisingly few hardships over the last few years. It must have been quite tedious to live there. Who was he to deny them their own slice of _fun_ that almost the whole continent was enjoying?

And frankly, there was nothing quite like an indiscriminate tornado of blood magic to reinforce a challenge made to every force that still mattered in Thedas: That the Betrayer of Kirkwall was _here_, in Rivain, theirs for the picking, ready and waiting.

Yes, Matrim Hawke, the monstrous shadow of a former hero, had counted on several things to happen when he had challenged every bastard from Par Vollen to Koscari Wilds to come and get him, here in the almost mythical Forest of Elders, in the near perfect centre of the Rivain Peninsula.

In his travels, Hawke had admittedly seen much larger forests than the Forest of Elder. Darker as well, in the wastes of Anderfels. Perhaps even more outright dangerous, if one counted the tropical rainforests of Seheron. But this ancient forest in the middle of the peninsula was most assuredly the _oldest_ forest he had ever seen, and a dark and a dangerous enough place to boot. He hadn't needed to encounter ancient bloodthirsty wraiths, banshees and wights to know that. The very air of Elder, rich with smoke, blood and something else unidentifiable clinging to the trees and the earth was a warning enough to someone like him.

When he had first arrived in Rivain, he had went through considerable pains to locate the elusive and xenophobic clans that made their secret strongholds in the so called Inner Rivain, the untamed centre of the large Rivain peninsula, deep within the uncharted moors and hills.

Upon his incessant prodding and questioning of the strange tribal shamans he had encountered there about the Forest, he was quite bluntly told that he was a mad fool courting death. Which only told him that those local wilders were smarter than anyone gave them credit for.

He barely managed to convince the tribesmen to give him some advice, and they mainly consisted of the variation of the phrase:"You are going to die very, very painfully." Although, they did tell him to avoid drinking from the suspiciously black and glassy lake at the centre of Forest of Elder.

Not that he _really_ needed any prompting after he saw the lake.

* * *

><p>He got the answer to his challenge soon enough.<p>

It didn't even take his enemies that long time to arrive. After not even three weeks, a band of the vengeful Rivaini Slayers with war paint still fresh on their faces had arrived, their white cloaks showing that they were kin to those slain in Dairsmuid. The knowledge of the craggy terrain and their righteous bloodlust gave them an almost demonic speed, and ensured that they would be the first to come. It didn't surprise him (although it really should have) that a squadron of the Seekers that happened to be in Rivain at that time, were hot on the Slayers' heels. The Templar Hunters sent from Anderfels and Antiva, the occasional ambitious Magister with his or her entourage as well as a company of the Beresaad soon followed them. Why, Hawke thought with a grim gallows humour that was a far cry from his long-gone witticism, even the unexpected Resolutionists and the always welcome Crows had come!

His last bloodgame was about to begin.

He had asked for a bloody Battle Royale, and he certainly got one. By his estimation, when put all together, his dear guests numbered somewhere between three and four hundred. Hopefully more.

His death was never supposed to be a tragedy. Rather, he intended it to be a, dare he say it, an act of justice. Anders would probably be horrified at the comparison, but as far as Hawke was concerned, his former friend's little act of spite hadn't been any better.

As the numerous arrows launched by the wretched Templar Hunters and imbued with impact runes shattered his weakened rock armour, Matrim allowed himself to quirk the first honest smile in seven years at the edge of his lips, even as a stream of blood started bubbling out of his mouth, his body riddled by numerous arrows from the next valley of projectiles unleashed by the Andraste's followers. The end was here, and what a gory and glorious end it was!

The Rivaini were all dead, as were the Resolutionists and most of the Seekers. What remained of them were fighting bitterly alongside the Templars against the sole surviving Magister and the rapidly withering Qunari in a miniature replica of the three-sided war that had torn asunder the whole of Thedas. A war that looked to have no true victor and only some lesser losers, as true here as in the outside world.

The Fallen Champion fell to his knees, feeling his formidable magic failing him at long last, his world slowly turning to black, a welcome respite from the shades of red that had been his vision and a constant companion for the past several years.

He had no regrets.

He hadn't succeeded in uncovering the mysterious secret of this ancient forest. That didn't concern him overly much. He hadn't expected to. He had known, deep in his twisted being, that there was no wondrous secret waiting to be discovered, no world-changing mystery hidden in this dark forest. He had merely hoped for an appropriate ambient for his end, and he got one. To him, this macabre but blessedly final ending was a gift enough for his broken mind. And trying to be honest in his last moments, as he surveyed the death of the magister through his now rapidly shrinking vision, the Tevinter's final show of defiance and vengeance killing the entirety of Seekers and wounding the rest of the combatants, it did seem to him that he had repaid the foreboding, primeval and _oh so hungry_ woods in kind.

Blood and the corpses surrounded him at every turn. Some of them were slain by his hand, but most of them had killed each other. It didn't matter to Hawke either way. Their blood, as well as his, was his sentimental gift to the Forest of Elder, as planned and anticipated.

What Matrim Hawke, the Champion of Kirkwall, _the Apostate_, already gray of hair and with sallow skin at only forty years of age, _most certainly hadn't expected_ was to tumble down the downward slope in his final moments, and to fall heavily into the murky dark depths of the still, dead lake that the half-wild clans of Inner Rivain called only the "Wyrd Waters".

And the world to change.

AN/: As said before, all criticism and opinions are welcome. If you think it sucks, feel free to tell me so in a review, but I would be grateful if you told me _**why **_it sucked.


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